How America's Thing With Race will affect you eight days from now

It was my intention today to take a partial day off. Maybe take a long-ish bike ride, start to organize my out-of-control email, or maybe my desk.

But then I read this: “As Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) put it this afternoon: “We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown—and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend.”

And in the same newsfeed, I read Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote: “The training wheels fell off for Republican leadership this week. They tried to pass two appropriations bills. They failed twice. The government shut down in 8 days and the House Republican Party HAS NO PLAN. Instead, we voted on stupid stuff today like reducing the salary of the White House Press Secretary to $1.”

The House also voted on reducing the salary to one dollar of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland; President of United States Joe Biden; and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin because…well because they don’t like their policies are their persona.

If our representatives are paid on a five day a week basis for 52 weeks a year, and if they accomplished all of that important work in one day, you, the American people just paid them $67,307.69 to complete this important work. That's not my real point here. It's just that that's a lot of money for nonsense.

You might be thinking that the government shut down won’t really have much of an effect on you. You weren’t planning on visiting a National Park anyway. And while it’s unconscionable for those on active military duty to not get a paycheck, they’re still prepared and required by law to defend the country with their lives. So at least your safety will not be affected. If you’re privately employed, you’ll still get a paycheck. If you’re federally employed you will likely be furloughed and not get a paycheck. But you’ll get unemployment, and when the government goes back to work you’ll even get backpay. If you’re on Social Security or VA Disability you’ll still get your checks.

But a shut-down will cost the economy a minimum of $1.8 billion every week. The 34-day shut down between 2018 and 2019 erased $11 billion in economic output. A longer shut down could mean higher inflation, higher prices, and an impact to your checkbook and bank account. And for what?!?

At issue is rightwing, MAGA extremists who are trying to hold the government hostage while demanding deep cuts in social programs.… programs that mostly affect… well, you know who they mostly affect.

So what gives here? There is a factor at play that could be inadvertently distorting the view of how our  congressional delegates see and understand the country and their constituents. Representatives and senators work, and in many cases live, in Washington DC, a city that does not reflect the makeup of the country. Instead, the city magnifies and exaggerates racial polarization.

Most of the following is derived from a 2012 opinion piece by Thomas Edsall, The distorted view from Capitol Hill.

“The poor in the District of Columbia are overwhelmingly Black. The city’s White population has a 2012 poverty rate of 6%. Black residents of Washington have a poverty rate of 27 percent, very close to the national average. Since the population of the city is 50.7 percent Black, this translates to an estimated 83,590 Blacks in poverty in the city compared to 12,560 Whites, a Black to White ratio of 6.7 to 1. In essence, for every poor White in the city there are nearly seven Black Americans living beneath the poverty line. Imagine the daily visual that our congressional representatives have from their offices and fancy restaurants and the thought that may go through their minds. “Golly… lazy poor people are almost exclusively Black.”

The overwhelming importance of race in defining poverty in Washington is also true of unemployment and crime. The 2010 inmate population in the District of Columbia, according to the Department of Corrections, was 88 percent Black, 6 percent Hispanic and 2 percent White. In contrast, the national state and federal prison population in 2010 was 37.7 percent Black, 32.0 percent White and 22.2 percent Hispanic

In the case of unemployment in Washington, joblessness is heavily concentrated among Blacks. From 2007 to September, 2011, the unemployment rate for Blacks in the city doubled, going from 10 percent to 20.6 percent.

The result is that the capital of the United States has a higher level of inequality than any state in the nation. Among the nation’s cities, it has the third-highest level of inequality, behind Atlanta and New Orleans.

The unrepresentative character of the city serves to reinforce conservative stereotypes: Unemployment and poverty are essentially Black problems; violent crime is committed mainly by Black Americans; and any spending to relieve these problems or any other domestic trouble will amount to a transfer of income from Whites to Blacks.

Congress, in one of the most undemocratic processes in the nation, can veto legislation passed by the City Council and signed into law by the mayor; all city judges must be approved by Congress; and Congress can impose laws on the city.

This is not just a theoretical issue. At various times since 1988, for example, Congress has enacted bans against the use of locally raised taxes or fees to finance abortions in the city.

Congress has constitutional authority to exercise these powers – and it does - but it would be far less likely to do so if the city’s majority population was White rather than Black.

The distortion of economic and racial reality for members of Congress living and working in Washington contributes to their tendency to view the consequences of budget cuts and austerity measures as affecting primarily individuals and families with whom they believe they have little in common. They often see or choose to see these people as separate and apart from both themselves and from the mainstream of the United States.”

So is race a part of this mess in the House of Representatives and the drive to reduce safety nets? I can’t really say for sure in a way that I could prove. But you can see where I’m going here with all of us. It’s a safe bet that if the MAGA extremist viewed federal safety nets and social programs as benefiting constituents who looked like them, they probably would not be holding the federal government – and you – hostage. It’s a safe bet we wouldn’t have this mess.  How does America’s Thing With Race affect you? This is how it affects you.

Call your representative.

Demand an end to the nonsense and to get to work. I’ve called mine. Put their number in your phone and then call yours. And here’s a piece of little-known knowledge. Every call you make counts. They don’t remove your name after you make one call. Every call counts. Call every day. Find your representative here.